100 dead pythons found in home; owner cited

A startling discovery was made inside a home: one hundred dead pythons.

This is one of those cases that just seems to defy explanation.

A woman who neighbors say lived alone and kept mostly to herself.

But she shared her home with many animals, and a lot of them were dead.

Katie McGinness, a mother of two, has walked her dog past the home at 132 Timberline Drive many times.

She’s shocked to learn the lady living there had approximately 100 dead snakes in a bedroom.

“I was just amazed,” said McGinness.

“It was just chaotic. I mean we had cops, we had the fire department,” said Rob Long, who lives next door to 132 Timberline Drive.

On February 16, police were called out to do a welfare check and found deplorable conditions. They says the entire floor of the house was covered with animal feces, and in a bedroom there were numerous plastic bins containing dead pythons.

“I mean why would anyone have 100 snakes?” asked Long.

The dead snakes were ball pythons, which are not poisonous and grow to 3-4 feet long.

“I was stunned, saddened because I watched them take some of the animals out,” McGinness said.

“I feel sorry for her, ‘cause I guess, I don’t know if she doesn’t have anyone to ask for help or she just got over her head with what she was doing,” Long said.

A local wildlife expert says for one person, feeding and taking care of 100 snakes at home would be practically a full time job.

“It’s just a sad situation. I’m going to assume that she was an animal lover, as we all are around here. However it just kind of got away from her,” said Amy Kight, animal care director at Busch Wildlife Sanctuary in Jupiter.

Neighbors say they shudder to think what might’ve happened if the snakes got loose in the neighborhood.

“That’s crazy. But it’s scary too, because if one of them escapes it’s scary,” said Sophia Simpson, 10, a neighbor.

Besides 100 dead snakes, authorities also removed some live animals, including two dogs, a couple of tortoises and parakeets and two snakes and an African gray parrot.

A Palm Beach County Animal Care and Control official said Thursday night as far as he knows, all of the animals have been adopted out.

The woman who had the dead snakes in her home, Jennifer Morrison, 59, was cited for confining animals without sufficient food and water.